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In February 2004, the Deer Valley School District was planning an elementary school for 560 students to open in 2005, but District officials realized that homes in Anthem were selling faster than anyone predicted. Classrooms were needed in August 2004 for 270 students. For the already fast-growing district, it meant more children than expected, sooner than expected. With the first day of school only 6 months away, the District took inventory of available buildings and sites. They had an unimproved site near Anthem with no arterial streets to the site, no utilities to the site, no infrastructure to the site, and no facility for August. They had children coming and no alternative. The District turned to the only builder that could solve two problems – build an entire campus in 6 months and provide the same solution at other high growth areas throughout the district……Modular Technology. With Deer Valley School District enrollment growing at 5% a year, the answer was a “temporary” school built with steel frame construction that could be moved to other fast growing areas in the future. “We did not want to invest in the wooden mobile units that look like double wide trailers and plop them on campuses. Those buildings wear down after a few years, especially after being moved.” said Kent Davis, Deer Valley associate superintendent of Administrative Services. The idea is to have a temporary fix, keeping existing schools from becoming overcrowded while permanent schools are built. According to the Arizona Republic , “… Deer Valley may be the first district in the Valley to use the movable school concept, keeping an entire school available just to handle growth. While the challenge to open a school in less than 6 months is impossible for the “traditional builder”, it is the norm for Modular Technology. Accelerated construction is inherent in how we build. Our process is parallel and simultaneous. While preparing the site and installing the infrastructure, we are constructing the building at our 20-acre facility. As soon as the site is ready, the building is shipped and installed at the site. Modular Technology's challenge on this site was coordination with the neighboring developer who was responsible for providing infrastructure, paving, and sidewalks to the school. Developers are accustomed to an 18-month timeline for a school of this size, and no amount of explanation of Modular Technology's accelerated schedules could convince them that we were going to have children in the buildings in 6 months.The August sun seared the emerging campus, parents buzzed around showing the children their new school. SUVs drove past barricades while wide-eyed children in back seats peered through tinted windows at their new school. Teachers tacked letters, numbers, and class rules in their rooms. As the excitement grew, sod appeared on barren desert sand, brightly colored jungle gyms sprouted from the sod. Huge shade trees were planted next to resting boulders. A very special child's world had been created from a piece of desert. On August 16, 2004, 560 students with new backpacks and new shoes bounded onto their brand new campus. Children, teachers, parents, administrators, and staff agreed that the dominant expression of the day was a big smile and the word of the day was “new”.
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